ALTORIŲ PROBLEMINIŲ TYRIMŲ GAIRĖS. XVII-XIX a. UŽNEMUNĖS BAŽNYČIŲ RETABULAI
A Framework for the Study of Altars. Retables from the 17th to the 19th Century in Užnemunė

Summary/Abstract: To date, there have been no scientific studies published in Lithuania on the subject of the altar as a specific type of church equipment. In the book entitled Old Wooden Sculpture and Ornamental Carving in Lithuania, Marija Matušakaitė has laid the basis for research about the development of artistic style in Lithuanian altars, but has not covered other aspects. Over recent years, apart from case studies, Lithuanian and foreign researchers have explored altars from a culture studies perspective. Their publications provide information necessary for the analysis of issues related to crafts history, the history of piety, social processes, patronage and visual rhetoric. Experts in provincial church art (in articles for Lithuanian Religious Art. Vol. I. Part I-VI. Vilnius, 1996-2006) have revealed the need for a contextual and systematic study of Lithuanian altars. The aim of this article is to shape the methodological framework for such a study, and to highlight some issues in altar research, dealing with its practical and theoretical aspects. The article draws upon sources and the heritage of one region of Lithuania - Užnemunė (the diocese of Vilkaviškis). They may serve as a micro-model for all Lithuanian provincial churches. The issues raised include the question of the authenticity of altars (the correlation between original parts of an altar and later reconstructions); aspects of the continuity of local traditions in 19th-century altars in Lithuanian provincial churches; the relativity of the traditional classification, based on the main artistic styles in the case of wooden church equipment; and the authorship of altars. The article traces the migration of traditions originating in the Baroque period, and repetitions of examples, to Neobaroque, from the old to the new church, and from professional religious art to the works of trained and folk artists. The second part of the article is devoted to the typology of retables from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It attempts to group altars based on their structure and artistic style. Only post-tridentine retable modifications have survived in Uþnemunë. The article discusses the types of retables that represent the following periods: the second half of the 17th century, the first three decades of the 18th century, the mid-18th century, late-18th century Baroque, 19th-century Neobaroque (mid-19th and late 19th, to the early 20th century), and the Neogothic style of the mid-19th to the early 20th century. It concludes that an integrated methodology that would fit local, common and unique features of objects, and which would be appropriate for the chosen question (issues of the prototype and the copy, authentic and restored, local tradition, etc) will be applied to solve problems related to the study of altars in Užnemunė.

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